Should be replaced
I was a wandering sheep, I did not love the fold. I did not love my Shepherd’s voice, I would not be controlled. I was a wayward child, I did not love my home. I did not love my Father’s voice, I loved afar to roam. The Shepherd sought His sheep, The Father sought His child. They followed me o’er vale and hill, over deserts waste and wild. They found me nigh to death, famished, faint and lone. They bound me with the bands of love—the saved the wand’ring one. Jesus is my Shepherd: It was He that loved my soul It was He that washed me in His blood, and He that made me whole. It was He that sought the lost, that found the wand’ring sheep, It was He that brought me to the fold, and He that still doth keep. I was a wandering sheep I would not be controlled But now I love my shepherd’s voice, I love, I love the fold I was a wayward child, I once preferred to roam, But now I love my Father’s voice, I love, I love his home Jesus is my shepherd is was he that saved my soul. It was he that made me whole.
When I sang this one as a kid, the old tune, like so many of the Baptist classics from the mid-1800s, made me feel like I was riding the merry-go-round at the town carnival. I'm sure back then congregants loved the umm-pah swing.
I didn't stop rolling my eyes over this one until the day my friend Pam started going on about the words! What great words! And she was right, and I felt like a dweeb for cultural snobbery.
When I changed the tune, I tried to keep some of the original earnestness, the stuff that's dorky and lives outside our world of irony.